the loveliest night I ever beheld, with all it's shadowy beauty, would fail to give me such enchanting sensations as the contemplation of the fair face of the Marchioness de G----. I should not be satisfied with your compliment, she replied, did I even believe you sincere, since the brightness of day, with which we have been comparing fair women, has so little influence on your heart. Why do lovers, who undoubtedly can judge of what is most touching, address all their poetic effusions to the night? To the ear of day they neither confide their transports nor their sorrows--why is it so entirely excluded from their confidence? Probably, I answered, because it is not calculated to inspire that delicious sentiment, at once impassioned and melancholy, which we feel in the stillness of night, whilst all nature seems to repose. The stars appear to move with more silent progress than the sun: every object that decorates the heavens is soft, and attractive to the eye: in short, we resign ourselves more easily to reverie because we feel as if no other being was at that time enjoying the pensive pleasure that expands our soul. Perhaps, too, the uniformity of day, in which the sky presents no other object than the sun, is less favourable to the wild and pleasing illusions of fancy than the view of innumerable stars, scattered with sportive irregularity, over the boundless space. I have always felt what you describe, said she, I love to see the stars, and am almost inclined to reproach the sun for hiding them. Ah! cried I, I cannot forgive him for concealing so many worlds from my sight! Worlds! she exclaimed, turning to me with surprise, what do you mean? Forgive me, said I, you touched the wildest chord of my imagination--I forget myself in a romantic idea. And what is this romantic idea? enquired the Marchioness. Ah! replied I, I am half ashamed of owning it:--I have taken it in my head that every star may be a world. I would not positively assert the truth of my opinion, but I believe it because it affords me pleasure; it has possessed my mind with irresistible force; and I consider pleasure a needful accessary to truth. Well, said she, since your whim is such a pleasant one, make me a partaker of it; I'll believe any thing you chuse about the stars, provided it contributes to my happiness. Ah! madam, I replied, 'tis not such an enjoyment as you would find in seeing one of Molière's comedies: it is an idea which can only give delight to the understanding. What! exclaimed she, do you think I am not susceptible of pleasures which depend only on reason? I will convince you of your mistake. Teach me your system. No, answered I, I will not subject myself to the reproach of having talked of philosophy, in such an enchanting walk as this, to the most interesting woman of my acquaintance. No, seek for pedants elsewhere.